


Turning Point

by Zivitz



Category: Suits - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26648335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zivitz/pseuds/Zivitz
Summary: Every relationship has a turning point. This could have been theirs. AU, set in 8A.
Relationships: Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Anna's fault, so she gets the dedication as well. To everyone else, my apologies. I don't even know.

It was a Friday night and he stood at Donna’s door with dinner- not his usual evening plans, and he wondered when he started wishing they were. The door opened after a few minutes and he was almost startled by how pale she was and how circles stood out under her eyes.

“Harvey,” she said slowly. “What are you doing here?”

“You haven’t taken this many sick days in a row the entire time I’ve known you. So I brought soup.” He lifted the bag in his hand. Okay, so it wasn’t homemade or probably particularly healthy, but some soup and a few simple dishes from her favourite Chinese place was the least he could do.

She stood back, and he breezed in. ‘I got plain vegetable broth and some chicken and rice, I wasn’t sure what you’d be up for. I also got some mild -” he stopped as he saw the box on her dining room table and she almost ran into him, eyes following his. It was just a box, pink and white, sitting unopened on the table, but at the sight of it he felt the bottom drop out of his world. 

A pregnancy test.

Donna hurried to the table and swept it behind her back, as if he could unsee it. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have left that out.”

His voice sounded strangled to his own ears. “Donna?”

“It’s no big deal, Harvey. Just forget you saw it.”

He moved to the table and set the food down carefully. “Is that why you’ve been sick?”

She bit her bottom lip and lifted her eyes to the ceiling, looking like she wished she could be anywhere else. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

He didn’t have the right to be upset about this. He didn’t. Was she seeing someone? He didn’t even know. But he knew that feeling what he was feeling was, if not wrong, then at very least not helpful. So he spoke carefully, the feel of her warmth beneath his hands at Mike’s wedding burning his palms even though it was weeks ago. “Do you want help?”

She chuffed a laugh. “To pee on a stick? I think I can handle it myself, thanks.”

He shook his head. “I mean, do you need a friend?”

Donna looked at him then, her freckles standing out against pale skin and he was startled to find there was a shimmer in her eyes. “Yes,” she breathed. “I think I do. I normally would have called Rachel, but...”

Harvey opened his arms and gathered her in, feeling her arms tighten against his back as she tucked her head under his chin. He brushed his hand down her back once, twice, three times- feeling the slight shuddering of her breath and wishing things were different.

He gave her a minute and when he felt her start to draw back, he pasted a smile on his face. “Are you hungry?”

“Not really, no.”

He took the box from her hand. “Then why don’t we go get this over with?”

\---

Five minutes later they leaned against the tub, nearly touching. The test lay between them, two bright pink lines announcing something neither of them were ready for.

“Aren't you going to ask?”

“Ask what?”

“Who-”

“That's not something I need to know.”

She looked at him then, the muscle in his jaw twitching slightly. “Because it's none of your business, or because you don't want to know?”

“It's none of my business.” The muscle twitches again, and his eyes close as he takes a deep sigh. “And I don't want to know.”

The thing they never talk about hangs between them heavily, and they both know the words neither of them will say: it should have been his.

“Have you-” he started, then paused, not sure if he wanted to know the answer. If he even had the right to ask.

“Have I what?” He glanced over at her and the look on her face was carefully guarded.

“Have you thought about what you want to do?”

Donna twisted her hands together, glancing down at the test that changed her life forever. “I’m forty years old, Harvey. If I want to have a child, this is probably my only chance.”

“ _Do_ you? Want to have a child?” It was something he’d never really thought about before, never even considered the possibility. He felt stupid, now- she was his partner in every sense of the word but one, and this is something he had never bothered to find out about her.

Donna sighed. “I don’t know. It was always something I thought might happen someday when-” she stopped short and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

“When we were together?” he asked softly, and she looked away.

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

He picked up the test and turned it over in his hands, wondering if he had the courage to say what he was thinking to the person he had quietly realized was likely the love of his life. “It’s what I always thought,” he admitted to the silence that hung between them.

When she found her voice again, she spoke harshly. “What, that I’d wait around for you and never have a life?”

“No, that someday we’d figure things out.”

“Well, surprise, Harvey. We didn’t.” She started to get up and he caught her hand, pulling her back down and rubbing a thumb across hers.

“Who is he?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

He was silent, and she withdrew her hand from his grasp. Sighed as she rubbed her hands across her face. “He was nobody. He said his name was Jeff. I never got a last name. We were just scratching an itch.”

Harvey felt like a bucket of ice water had been dashed over him: pure relief, raw and unfettered. He still had a chance. He hoped he still had a chance. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Donna...”

“What is it, Harvey?” She sounded tired, and he hesitated. This was already a swirl of emotions, and he didn’t want to add to her burden.

He settled for, “I want to be here for you. Whatever you decide to do.”

“Be here how,” she said warily, and the memory of that phrase transported them both back in time. He was damned if he was going to let history repeat itself, even if it meant it wasn’t the right time to say what needed to be said.

“Any way you need. If you need a friend, I’ll be here. If you need a colleague to help smooth things out at work. If you need a-” he paused, and she frowned at him.

“A what?”

He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, a soft peck that were it on her cheek would be a friendly gesture. “A partner. If you need me- if you _want_ me-, I’m yours.”

She pulled away. “Harvey, I can’t-”

He stood up and offered his hand, pulling her up with ease. “I’m not asking for anything. I’m just offering. I’m _ready_ to offer.” He held her gaze for a moment, then cocked a half smile. “Come on, I’m hungry.”

Donna felt dazed as she followed Harvey through the apartment. He emptied the bags onto her table, lifting the lids and deciding by the look on her face whether they were acceptable or not. The soup was fine, potstickers and chicken with rice passed muster, but whatever was on her face when he pulled out the Kung Pao chicken made him put it right back in the bag and deposit it in the hall outside her door. She sat numbly as he rummaged around her kitchen like he belonged there, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a towel over his shoulder. 

She waited for something to happen to tip her off this was a dream. She was pregnant. Harvey was offering... what, exactly? She didn’t even know. She still felt the ghost of his kiss against her lips and wondered what kind of sideways world she’d walked into when she wasn’t looking. 

She was pregnant. God, that was going to get some getting used to. It didn’t come as a surprise, not really- she could write off a skipped period as stress, but two had never happened and she was tired, so tired. She swore she could smell through time. Everything was making her nauseated. She’d taken a few days off work to rest and get up the courage to take the test she’d nervously bought on her way home from work.

She snapped to attention when he placed a bowl of plain broth in front of her, and to her surprise her stomach grumbled. She glanced up at his self-satisfied smirk and shook her head. “Lucky guess,” she muttered.

“I’ll have you know I pay attention more than you think I do,” he said as he sat next to her with his own bowl and started to eat. She must have been staring, because next thing she knew he was holding a spoon to her lips. “It helps if you actually put it in your stomach.”

She tossed him a look that clearly said “thanks, wiseass” and let him put it in her mouth before taking the spoon herself. She wasn’t used to this. It was weird, and yet weirdly... natural. They’d never been Just Friends, not really, but they’d been friends for long enough that having him here felt... nostalgic? Comforting?

_ Right _ , her  brain supplied. 

She pushed the thought from her mind and focused on the heat of the spoon, the slightly sweet spice of the broth in her mouth, the warmth as it coated the inside of her stomach. She deliberately tried not to focus on the way Harvey looked over at her every ten seconds.

“ I’m not going to break. Or spontaneously combust. Or whatever it is you’re afraid of.”

  
“You’re not going to break, Donna. You’re the strongest person I know.” He grabbed a potsticker with his chopsticks and popped it in his mouth as if he hadn’t just dropped another bomb. She probably was the strongest person he knew, but to hear him say it was almost concerning. He was never like this.

  
  


“What’s gotten into you tonight, Harvey?”

  
  


He stopped poking at his dish and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  
  


“I mean you’re being very...” she twirled her spoon in the air, looking for the right word. “Open. Friendly. UnHarveyish.”

  
  


Harvey looked wounded. “Am I usually not friendly and open?”

  
  


Donna sighed. “ Harvey, y ou’ve never been open.”

  
  


“I’ve always been an open book to you, Donna.”

  
  


“You’ve always been a book I’ve been able to read. That’s different.” She put her spoon down, suddenly not that hungry any more. “Why did you come here tonight?”

  
  


He didn’t speak,  chasing a piece of broccoli with his chopsticks instead. “I missed you,” he said finally. 

  
  


“You missed me. Harvey, I saw you the day before yesterday.”

  
  


“I know. And I missed seeing you. I was worried, too, you’re never sick like this, but  the thought of not seeing you until Monday, or maybe not even then, made me-” he stopped.  “I just wanted to see you.”

  
  


Donna considered him fully for the first time since he appeared at her door. He’d gone home and changed, which surprised her, but not more than seeing him nervous. Because he  _ was _ nervous , sitting next to her at her dining room table in jeans, his perfect hair mussed where he’d run his hair through it at some point, his leg jiggling slightly beneath the table and his gaze focused on his  dish like a child avoiding a scolding.

  
  


“It made you what, Harvey?”

  
  


“Nothing.” He put his chopsticks down. “I should get going. You’ve just had some big news, you probably need time to-”

  
  


She put her hand on his knee and he stopped talking. “Harvey. Just tell me.”

  
  


He looked at her and  she thought she saw sadness in his eyes . “This is a terrible time to do this. We should just call it a night.”

  
  


“ I don’t know that there is ever going to be a right time. Please.”

  
  


Harvey took a deep breath. “When you weren’t at work it made me realize how much I depend on you- not as a secretary anymore, and not just as a colleague, but as someone who makes my life better. Who makes  ** me ** better. And when it hit me that I might not see you for four whole days, I had my keys in hand before I even thought about it. I don’t want to go four days without you. I don’t want to go even one day without you. And what I said in there,” he waved his hand toward the bathroom, “is the truth. I want to be here for you, however you’ll have me. If we’ve missed our chance because I’ve been too stupid to see what was in front of me, I’ll accept that. But you’re my best friend and no matter what happens I don’t want to lose you.”

  
  


The look in his eyes was everything she’d been waiting for since that moment in the diner so long ago. She cursed their timing. “You know,” she said slowly, “that my priorities have shifted. You’re not the centre of my universe.” She figured he knew the ‘anymore’ was implied.

“I’m not asking or expecting to be.”

  
  


“I know, but you’re you, Harvey.”

  
  


“I am. But I’m learning.”

  
  


“I’m pregnant.” She wondered if that would ever seem real.

  
  


“I know.”

  
  


“I’m going to have this baby,”  she insisted,  realizing as she said it that she’d already made the decision.

  
  


“I know.”

  
  


“And  that doesn’t bother you?”

  
  


He hesitated, and she thought that might be the end of it. “It bothers me that we could have had this together and don’t because I was an idiot. But no, Donna. Your child is part of you. How could I not love it?”

  
  


They each  looked  as shocked as the other. She didn’t think he’d intended to say that; it was the first time they’d broached the ‘L’ word in several years. She wasn’t sure what to say. “Harvey-” 

  
  


“I know. You need time. It’s okay.” He squeezed the hand that rested on his knee and began to collect dishes. “Do you want me to heat up that soup for you?”

  
  


“ No, I’ll get it later.” She watched as he cleaned up after himself and again wondered how they’d gotten here. Harvey in her home, willing to be who she needed. Everything she’d wanted for years was hers for the taking, and yet she was hesitant to take it. Her hand drifted to her lower abdomen. She was a unit now, had more than just herself to think about. And yet-

  
  


“Hey,” he said softly, crouched beside her. “You going to be okay? Is there someone you want me to call, or do you want me to stay?”

  
  


She shook her head. “I’m okay.  Just a lot to think about. ”

  
  


S he followed him to the door and hung on it as he stooped  in the hallway  to pick up the bag he’d placed there earlier. She could have all of this, if she let him. And it was so tempting. Everything in her screamed at her to kiss him, drag him back inside, ask him to repeat everything he’d said to her.  To make him mean it. 

He turned around and looked at her with so much hope in his eyes it made her ache. “See you on Monday?”

  
  


“Sure.”

  
  


He started to walk away and she found she couldn’t stand it any longer. She reached out and touched his arm, stopping him in his tracks. As he turned, she rose up on her toes and kissed him. It was soft and sweet and she’d never forgotten the taste of him but never realized how much she’d missed it until now. He kissed her back, tentatively, as if he was afraid she’d disappear. 

Then she heard a jingle of keys coming down the corridor and pulled back.  The last thing she needed was to be caught in the hallway like a couple of teenagers. He searched her eyes and must have found what he needed there, because he sighed heavily and brushed a hand down her cheek, sweeping away a few stray hairs.

  
  


She put a hand over his and smiled. “See you on Monday, Harvey.”


End file.
